This application relates generally to a gas turbine engine for an aircraft, and more specifically, to the inclusion of a thrust reverser at a rear end of a gas turbine engine mounted to a rear of the aircraft.
Gas turbine engines typically include a fan delivering air into a compressor section and also outwardly of the compressor as bypass air. Air from the compressor section passes into a combustor, is mixed with fuel, and ignited. Products of this combustion pass downstream over turbine rotors, driving them to rotate.
In typical gas turbine engines, the fan is positioned axially at a forward end of an engine, and a compressor section is attached downstream thereto. A combustor section and turbine section are located downstream of the compressor section in axial alignment so that the compressor section is nearer the fan than the combustor section or turbine section. In a reverse flow gas turbine engine, the turbine section is adjacent the fan, and the combustor section is at an inner end of the turbine section, with the compressor positioned farthest from the fan.
A thrust reverser is utilized once an aircraft carrying the gas turbine engine has touched down during a landing operation, and acts to create a reverse force to slow the aircraft.
One concept that has been proposed in gas turbine engines is a thrust reverser provided by pivoting shell halves at the rear of the turbine section. Such thrust reversers were generally utilized in prior gas turbine engines which used little, or no, bypass air. That is, the thrust reverser only blocked (reversed) the turbine flow. For bypass engines, a second thrust reverser is typically present in the nacelle to block the bypass flow adjacent the fan exit.
In addition, various types of thrust reversers have been incorporated into more modern gas turbine engines which do have a large fan providing bypass air as propulsion, and in addition to the air passing through the compressor. However, this standard type of gas turbine engine generally had an engine core that extended beyond the end of the fan nozzle, such that the shell halves could not pivot inwardly to a thrust reverse position.